Presently, there are no existing solutions to prevent unscheduled airborne releases of hazardous or radioactive substances into the environment while working on HTRW work sites. An additional major problem with these land reclamation activities is personnel safety. The instant invention solves these problems.
In particular, the invention herein provides a reclamation apparatus and method for accomplishing safe and secure secondary containment of waste storage structures that include single-shell tanks for either closure or corrective action work plans and tertiary containment for double-shell tank corrective actions. This invention can also be applied to burial vaults, trenches, discharge cribs, or overflow drains as well.
Prior inventions that address secondary containment methods and systems of single shell tanks and waste fields per se are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,552,166 and 4,618,284 respectively. Neither of these references teach of a means to prevent HTRW emissions into the environment while corrective secondary containment measures are ongoing. Indeed, the instant invention is a means for overcoming such problems which is taught by the inventor's article entitled "Movable Air Form Structures for Containing Airborne Releases," published in Concrete International, August 1993 edition, pp.30-35.